McGinn: Give voters choice to expand light rail

Mike McGinn on Wednesday said if elected mayor he will present Seattle voters with a plan to expand light rail service in the city within two years.

“Sound Transit has no active plans to bring service to the western half of the city,” McGinn said at a news conference at the Columbia City light rail station. “What I want to do if elected mayor is give voters the choice about expanding light rail in the city as soon as possible.”

McGinn speaks about light rail expansion plans Wednesday.

McGinn said while the light rail system plans for expansions are good, neighborhoods such as Ballard, Belltown, Queen Anne and West Seattle would be left out. Sound Transit opened its first light rail line this summer. It goes from Westlake in downtown Seattle to just before Sea-Tac Airport. Current expansion plans call for light rail stretching north to the University of Washington and east to Bellevue.

McGinn said he would like to use existing city taxing authority to build lines in other Seattle neighborhoods. He didn’t have cost estimates, but said light rail expansion should be built as inexpensively as possible. “We’re not putting a dollar figure on it today,” he said, adding the city should utilize existing rights of way to create transit-only lanes and corridors.

He pointed to Portland’s fifth MAX light rail line, an 8.3-mile expansion he says took only three years to build and cost $575 million. “We can learn from Portland,” McGinn said.

While McGinn didn’t have specific details about a plan, saying those would be worked out later, he did say if Seattle voters approve more light rail lines the city would not create a separate transit agency but would work with Sound Transit and King County Metro.

McGinn said one of the reasons the city’s plan to expand monorail service in the city bombed was because it didn’t integrage with existing agencies.

Voters approved construction of a 14-mile monorail line between Ballard and West Seattle, but before construction began it was revealed that interest costs would be $9 billion on top of $2 billion in construction costs. In September of 2005, Mayor Greg Nickels killed the Seattle Monorail Project, saying the financial plan wasn’t viable. But people in Seattle still paid hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars in vehicle taxes for a transit project that went nowhere.

“When someone proposes a plan of this size, the responsible thing to do is let voters know how much it will cost and how he’s going to pay for it,” he said in a statement.”Mike McGinn won’t be honest with voters about how much his proposal will cost and suggests putting this haphazard measure on the ballot the same year Seattle’s Family and Education Levy is up for renewal. I think the last thing we should do is pit kids against mass transit solutions.”

McGinn, who focused much of his campaign on opposition to the Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel during the run up to the Aug. 18 primary, has in recent days released position papers on public safety and the city’s financial woes.